any book here which particularly excites my attention, I place my lamp upon a table by my bedside, and read in bed until twelve. No danger of ignition, my lamp being quite safe, and my curtains moreen. "Thus ends this strange eventful history." Should Sir Andrew Agnew, or any other evangelical successor in St. Stephen's Chapel, (for he is no longer a senator,) succeed in passing a Sunday Bill to abolish public carriages, it would, you see from the above detail, not affect me. My only deviation from this even tenor, is an occasional family dinner at my friend Heath's in Russell Square, or at Dr. Paris's in Dover Street. The handsome new edition of "Pelham," lying on our table alongside of the agreeable miscellanies of Bulwer's old friend, tempts us to this interior. I dined yesterday with E. L. Bulwer, at his new residence, in Charles Street, Berkeley Square, a splendidly and classically fitted-up mansion. One of the drawingrooms is a fac-simile of a chamber which our host visited at Pompeii,-vases, candelabra, chairs, tables, to correspond. He lighted a perfumed pastille modelled from Mount Vesuvius. As soon as the cone of the mountain began to blaze, I fancied myself an inhabitant of the devoted city; and, as Pliny the Elder, thus addressed Bulwer, my supposed nephew :-"Our fate is accomplished, nephew. Hand me yonder volume ;-I shall die as a student in my vocation. Do you then hasten to take refuge on board the fleet at Misenum. Yonder cloud of hot ashes chides thy longer delay. Feel no alarm for me-I shall live in story. The author of Pelham will rescue my name from oblivion." Pliny the Younger made me a low bow. I perceive by the newspapers that Madame Vestris is about to exhibit Puss in Boots at Christmas, and that all the other theatres adopt nursery tales as vehicles for their pantomimes. These things must be wholly unintelligible to the present philosophical race of infants. I should suggest pieces like the following:-" Population, or Harlequin Martineau." "My Stars, or Harlequin Herschel." "Pons Asinorum, or Harlequin Triangle." Harlequin Tedious, or Yours sincerely, JAMES SMITH. Mrs Glover reminded me on Tuesday, that on that day she had just been twenty-fours years in my service. What a lapse of time! How different was I then from that which I am now! then a rattling, lively, fresh-coloured man of the town, running from dinner to rout, and from tavern to opera, and now quiet and contented, with all my social eggs in one basket. May the basket never break! I dined to-day at the Union, upon lamb-chops: I never order any thing else while they are in season. I observed that ordered a luxurious repast, like Luke in the City Madam. How could you endure that man? I believe he used to call upon you in Paris. I am certain he has no soul, and if I meet him in paradise I shall be very much surprised. According to your account, has a soul. I quite forgot to ask Deville whether I had one. How glad I am that, as the old man says in "As You Like it," In my youth I never did apply Hot and rebellious liquors to my blood. The consequence is, that I now can dine upon mutton and drink water with an unabated appetite. My long confinement from illness has given me a habit of passing the evenings at home. The clubs or dinner society are no longer necessary to my comfort. I think I shall be more sparing of these recreations in future. At all events, at the beginning of every month, as now, when the periodicals make their appearance, I shall dine and pass the evening at home. Theatres have long been out of the question. This shows us a new beauty in light periodical litera ture. It was a prediction of somebody's, several years ago, that, when phrenological lectures failed, developments I dined on Saturday with The gorgeous furni- would be a sure card; and so they are-absolutely takture did not of course please me, who am above charac-ing the bread of the fortune-tellers and gipsies from beterized [by a phrenologist] as disliking gaudy and showy colours. The M. P. properly remarked that such furniture is all right in an old baronial hall, but to encounter it in a small house in a London street is too startling a transition. The inner drawing-room, fitted up from a model at Pompeii, is in more classical, and therefore a better taste. Here were busts of Hebe, Laura, Petrarch, Dante, and other worthies. tween their white teeth, by manipulations upon the skull, instead of the palm of the hand; and equally skilful the phrenologists seem in tickling their credulous clients. I have at length paid a visit to Deville the phrenologist; the following is a literal copy of his certificate:Great kindness shown to children; warm in friend Now for a snatch of this gay old gentleman's philo-ship; it is a point that requires care, as inconvenience sophy: My notion of Hentlesham Hall is a large old red brick house with stone pilasters, and wings, with steps up to the central entrance. Are there any old family pictures? I love to look at things of that sort. A handsome young woman in blue velvet by Sir Peter Lely, with her right hand on the head of a favourite lap-dog; then the object of love and admiration, and now-where ? Reflections upon this lead us to two opposite conclusions, according as our temper and habits operate. The grave join the monks of La Trappe, and the gay rush into the ball-rooms and taverns; so that the certainty of death proves nothing. O blindness to the future kindly given ! I too (insignificant I) shall live upon canvass in the studio of Lonsdale the painter in Berners Street (No. 6). On the death of the painter, his goods and chattels will come to the hammer, and a century hence I may be seen in a broker's shop in Frith Street, Soho, peeping out amid a motley assemblage of old iron, ragged sofas, and damaged crockery ware! So much for human glory! Johnson says of Cowley, that he was, in his day, a poet may arise in serving others. Irritable at times, with some anger if offended, being liable to become irritable on trifles more than upon things of importance. Firm in your views and opinions, particularly upon important matters. Not over positive. Sensitive to approbation and distinction, it being a motive for most of the actions; but feeling conscious of your own power, and the respect you consider your due. Rather tenacious on the point of honour in seeking it, not stooping to servile means to obtain it. Much urbanity of manner shown in society, and much general knowledge and information developed. Property not coveted further than its purposes in life. A high respect for religion and its institutions. For occupation, the development of the intellectual faculties is strong. You should possess much useful information; languages, classics, literature, history, science, and mathematics, well understood, and with facility applied to highly useful purposes, and various practical purposes. Some poetical feeling, if studied. Works of art pleasing, with power for drawing. Things out of parallel lines or upright quickly seen. Music should give pleasure, and if studied, a good ear and judgment of it. Fond of sys-. tem and arrangement by those under the direction. A great dislike to gaudy or showy colours in dress or " May 7, 1833." Our dinner-party yesterday at H's chambers was very lively. Mrs. was dressed in pink, with a black lace veil; her hair smooth, with a knot behind, and a string of small pearls across her forehead. H- was the lion of the dinner-table, whereupon I, like Addison, did "maintain my dignity by a stiff silence." An op not virtue sufficient to resist. Lord L mentioned that an old lady, an acquaintance of his, kept her books in detached book-cases, the male authors in one, and the female in another. I said, "I suppose her reason was, she did not wish to increase her library." Altogether the conversation, considering the presence of ladies, was too mannish. As Pepys says in his Memoirs," Pleasant, but wrong." Deville evidently did not know me. He added fur-portunity for a bon-mot, however, occurred, which I had ther in conversation, that I took, or ought to take, a prominent lead in affairs literary or political; but that if on committees, a small number, say three, would please me most. Of the accuracy of his admeasurement, I, of course, am not a competent judge. He has clearly overrated me in some particulars: I fear I have not the high religious character he assigns to me; and that he has given me too much of science and mathematics. The expenditure in building or alterations is an odd coincidence, as I have lately had the lower apartments of my house under repair. If he means figuratively castles in the air, he is wonderfully accurate. I have always had a tendency to that sort of architecture; some of those places of ideal strength have recently Toppled on their warder's head, which had been previously turned, as if purposely to receive them. What do you think of the fidelity of the portrait in its general features? If true, it ought to be endorsed on my engraved portrait which hangs in your anteroom. Deville's room was stuffed full of skulls. Around the apartment were also arranged busts of the celebrated dead and living; among the rest, Byron with his smooth Apollonian beauty, and Tom Moore with his chin in the air. I rode in the Park on Friday with Count d'Orsay, who said Lady B. had received a beautiful poem from Mrs. Torre Holme. His light blue trousers were the admiration of the learned and curious. The marvellous story of a husband-poisoner, which Mr. Smith relates, was probably a hoax, or the experiment upon him of a fictionist in want of a plot; and, at all events, it is not now new to the world. It ought to be a rule, in fashionable society, never to invite two lions to the same dinner party. Evening parties afford more scope to the shaggy monarchs of the saloon. This passage illustrates the utility of the rule we suggest; and affords another fair specimen of Mr. James Smith's table-wit. * * * * Did I tell you of a pun of mine upon —, who, since the obtaining of his pension, has ceased to write? viz. that he was a pen-shunner. Not so very bad. Tell this to your husband. Count d'Orsay called on me yesterday. The mixture of gaiety and good sense in his conversation makes him always most acceptable to me. Here is a trait of modern married life. From what portion of Scripture could the lady justify separation from her husband, because he chose to dine with a friend on Sunday? You don't know He married a widow, Sam espied in the drawing-room a bible and prayer-book of We are really sorry that this lively correspondence terminates so suddenly-or rather, that it began so late; and doubly so, to part with one who should have continued always gay and juvenile, and have lived for ever -in London. SKETCHES OF LIFE AND MANNERS; FROM THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER. (Continued from our December No.) THIS mention of Allan Cunningham recalls to my recollection an affair which retains one part of its interest to this day, arising out of the very important casuistical question which it involves. We Protestant nations are in the habit of treating casuistry as a field of speculation, false and baseless per se; nay, we regard it not so much in the light of a visionary and idle speculation, as one positively erroneous in its principles, and mischievous for its practical results. This is due in part to the disproportionate importance which the Church of Rome has always attached to casuistry; making, in fact, this supplementary section of ethics take precedency of its elementary doctrines in their catholic simplicity: as though the plain and broad highway of morality were scarcely ever the safe road, but that every case of human conduct were to be treated as an exception, and never as lying within the universal rule: and thus forcing the simple, honest-minded Christian to travel upon a tortuous by-road, in which he could not advance a step in security without a spiritual guide at his elbow: and, in fact, whenever the hair-splitting casuistry is brought, with all its elaborate machinery, to bear upon the simplicities of household life, and upon the daily intercourse of the world, there it has the effect (and is expressly cherished by the Romish Church with a view to the effect) of raising the spiritual pastor into a sort of importance which corresponds to that of an attorney. The consulting casuist is, in fact, to all intents and purposes, a moral attorney. For, as the plainest man, with the most direct purposes, is yet reasonably afraid to trust himself to his own guidance in any affair connected with questions of law; so also, when taught to believe that an upright intention and good sense are equally insufficient in morals, as they are in law, to keep him from stumbling or from missing his road, he comes to regard a conscience-keeper as being no less indispensable for his daily life and conversation, than his legal agent, or his professional "man of business," for the safe management of his property, and for his guidance amongst the innumerable niceties which beset the real and inevitable intricacies of rights and duties, as they grow out of human enactments and a complex condition of society. Fortunately for the happiness of human nature and its dignity, those holier rights and duties which grow out of laws heavenly and divine, written by the finger of God upon the heart of every rational creature, are beset by no such intricacies, and require, therefore, no such vicarious agency for their practical assertion. The primal duties of life, like the primal charities, are placed high above us-legible to every eye, and shining, like the stars, with a splendour that is read in every clime, and translates itself into every lan guage at once. Such is the imagery of Wordsworth. But this is otherwise estimated in the policy of papal Rome: and casuistry usurps a place in her spiritual economy, to which our Protestant feelings demur. So far, however, the question between us and Rome is a question of degrees. They push casuistry into a general and unlimited application; we, if at all, into a very narrow one. But another difference there is between us even more important; for it regards no mere excess in the quantity of range allowed to casuistry, but in the quality of its speculations: and which it is (more than any other cause) that has degraded the office of casuistical learning amongst us. Questions are raised, problems are entertained, by the Romish casuistry, which too often offend against all purity and manliness of thinking. And that objection occurs forcibly here, which Southey (either in The Quarterly Review or in his "Life of Westley") has urged and expanded with regard to the Romish and also the Methodist practice of auricular confession-viz., that, as it is practically managed, not leaving the person engaged in this act to confess according to the light of his own conscience, but at every moment interfering, on the part of the confessor, to suggest leading questions (as lawyers call them,) and to throw the light of confession upon parts of the experience which native modesty would leave in darkness,—so managed, the practice of confession is undoubtedly the most demoralising practice known to any Christian society. Innocent young persons, whose thoughts would never have wandered out upon any impure images or suggestions, have their ingenuity and their curiosity sent roving upon unlawful quests: they are instructed to watch what else would pass undetained in the mind, and would pass unblameably, on the Miltonic principle: ("Evil into the mind of God or man may come unblamed," &c.) Nay, which is worst of all, unconscious or semiconscious thoughts and feelings or natural impulses, rising, like a breath of wind under some motion of nature, and again dying away, because not made the subject of artificial review and interpretation, are now brought powerfully under the focal light of the consciousness: and whatsoever is once made the subject of consciousness, can never again have the privilege of gay, careless thoughtlessness-the privilege by which the mind, like the lamps of a mail-coach, moving rapidly through the midnight woods, illuminate, for one instant, the foliage or sleeping umbrage of the thickets; and, in the next instant, have quitted them, to carry their radiance forward upon endless successions of objects. This happy privilege is forfeited for ever, when the pointed significancy of the confessor's questions, and the direct knowledge which he plants in the mind, have awakened a guilty fami liarity with every form of impurity and unhal- | systems of morality, from the Nichomachéan ethics lowed sensuality. of Aristotle downwards-is the want of a casuistry, by way of supplement to the main system, and governed by the spirit of the very same laws, which the writer has previously employed in the main body of his work. And the immense superiority of this supplementary section, to the main body of the systems, would appear in this, that the latter I have just been saying, aspires only to guide the Here, then, are objections sound and deep, to casuistry, as managed in the Romish church. Every possible objection ever made to auricular confession applies with equal strength to casuistry; and some objections, besides these, are peculiar to itself. And yet, after all, these are but objections to casuistry as treated by a particular church. Casuistry in itself-casuistry as a pos-reflecting judgment in harmonizing the different sible, as a most useful, and a most interesting parts of his own conduct, so as to bring them under speculation-remains unaffected by any one of these the same law; whereas the casuistical section, in objections; for none applies to the essence of the the supplement, would seriously undertake to guide case, but only to its accidents, or separable adjuncts. the conduct, in many doubtful cases, of actionNeither is this any curious or subtle observation of cases which are so regarded by all thinking persons. little practical value. The fact is as far otherwise Take, for example, the case which so often arises as can be imagined-the defect to which I am here between master and servant, and in so many variepointing, is one of the most clamorous importance, ties of form-a case which requires you to decide Of what value, let me ask, is Paley's Moral Philo- between some violation of your conscience, on the sophy? What is its imagined use? Is it that in one hand, as to veracity, by saying something that substance it reveals any new duties, or banishes as is not strictly true, as well as by evading (and that false any old ones? No; but because the known is often done) all answer to inquiries which you and admitted duties-duties recognised in every are unable to meet satisfactorily-a violation of system of ethics-are here placed (successfully or your conscience to this extent, and in this way; not) upon new foundations, or brought into rela- or, on the other hand, a still more painful violation tion with new principles not previously perceived of your conscience in consigning deliberately some to be in any relation whatever. This, in fact, is young woman-faulty, no doubt, and erring, but the very meaning of a theory or contemplation, yet likely to derive a lesson from her own errors, [gra,] when A, B, C, old and undisputed facts and the risk to which they have exposed her-conhave their relations to each other developed. It is signing her, I say, to ruin, by refusing her a charnot, therefore, for any practical benefit in action, acter, and thus shutting the door upon all the so much as for the satisfaction of the understand-paths by which she might retrace her steps. ing, when reflecting on a man's own actions, the wish to see what his conscience or his heart prompts reconciled to general laws of thinking-this is the particular service performed by Paley's Moral Philosophy. It does not so much profess to tell what you are to do, as the why and the wherefore; and, in particular, to show how one rule of action may be reconciled to some other rule of equal authority, but which, apparently, is in hostility to the first. Such, then, is the utmost and highest aim of the Paleyian or the Ciceronian ethics, as they exist. Meantime, the grievous defect to which I have adverted above-a defect equally found in all *No terms of art are used so arbitrarily, and with such perfect levity, as the terms hypothesis, theory, sys tem. Most writers use one or other with the same indif This I state as one amongst the many cases of conscience daily occurring in the common business of the world. It would surprise any reader to find how many they are; in fact, a very large volume might be easily collected of such cases as are of ordinary occurrence. Casuistry, the very word casuistry expresses the science which deals with such cases: for as a case, in the declension of a noun, means a falling away, or a deflection from the upright nominative (rectus,) so a case in ethics implies some falling off, or deflection from the high road of catholic morality. Now, of all such cases, one, perhaps the most difficult to manage, the most intractable, whether for consistency of thinking as to the theory of morals, or for consistency of action as to the practice of morals, is the case of DUELLING. As an introduction, I will state my story-the case for the casuist; and then say one word on the reason of the case. ference that they use in constructing the title of a novel, or, suppose, of a pamphlet, where the phrase thoughts, or strictures, or considerations, upon so and so, are used ad libitum. Meantime, the distinctions are essential. That First, let me report the case of a friend-a disis properly an hypothesis where the question is about a tinguished lawyer at the English bar. I had the cause certain phenomena are known and given the circumstances from himself, which lie in a very object is to place below these phenomena a basis [a small compass; and, as my friend is known, to a Sedios] capable of supporting them, and accounting for them. Thus, if you were to assign a cause sufficient to proverb almost, for his literal accuracy in all stateaccount for the aurora borealis, that would be an hypo-ments of fact, there need be no fear of any mistake thesis. But a theory, on the other hand, takes a multi- as to the main points of the case. He was one day tude of facts all disjointed, or, at most, suspected, of engaged in pleading before the Commissioners of some inter-dependency: these it takes and places under strict laws of relation to each other. But here there is Bankruptcy; a court then newly appointed, and no question of a cause. Finally, a system is the syn- differently constituted, I believe, in some respects, thesis of a theory and an hypothesis: it states the rela- from its present form. That particular commistions as amongst an undigested mass, rudis indigestaquesioner, as it happened, who presided at the moment moles, of known phenomena; and it assigns a basis for the whole, as in an hypothesis. These distinctions would become vivid and convincing by the help of proper illus trations. when the case occurred, had been recently appointed, and did not know the faces of those who chiefly practised in the court. All things, indeed, concurred 66 painter, who had yielded to the temptation of the subtle fiend, With repentance his only companion he lay; And a dismal companion is she. to favour his mistake: for the case itself came on in a shape or in a stage which was liable to misinterpretation, from the partial view which it allowed of the facts, under the hurry of the procedure; and my friend, also, unluckily, had Meantime, my friend-what was his condition; neglected to assume his barrister's costume, so that and how did he pass the interval? I have heard he passed, in the commissioner's appreciation, as him feelingly describe the misery, the blank anguish an attorney. "What if he had been an attorney?" of this memorable night. Sometimes it happens it may be said: was he, therefore, less entitled that a man's conscience is wounded; but this very to courtesy or justice?" Certainly not; nor is it wound is the means, perhaps, by which his feelings my business to apologise for the commissioner. are spared for the present: sometimes his feelings But it may easily be imagined, and (making allow- are lacerated; but this very laceration makes the ances for the confusion of hurry and imperfect ransom for his conscience. Here, on the contrary, knowledge of the case) it does offer something in his feelings and his happiness were dimmed by the palliation of the judge's rashness, that, amongst a very same cause which offered pain and outrage to large heap of "Old Bailey" attorneys, who notori- his conscience. He was, upon principle, a hater of ously attended this court for the express purpose duelling. Under any circumstances, he would of whitewashing their clients, and who were in bad have condemned the man who could, for a light odour as tricksters, he could hardly have been ex- | cause, or almost for the weightiest, have so much pected to make a special exception in favour of one as accepted a challenge. Yet, here he was positively particular man, who had not protected himself by offering a challenge; and to whom? To a man the insignia of his order. His main error, however, whom he scarcely knew by sight; whom he had lay in misapprehending the case: this misappre- never spoken to until this unfortunate afternoon; hension lent strength to the assumption that my and towards whom (now that the momentary exfriend was an "Old Bailey" (i. e., a sharking) citement of anger had passed away) he felt no atom attorney; whilst, on the other hand, that assump- of passion or resentment whatsoever. As a free “untion lent strength to his misapprehension of the housed" young man, therefore, had he been such, case. Angry interruptions began: these, being without ties or obligations in life, he would have felt retorted or resented with just indignation, produced the profoundest compunction at the anticipation of an irritation and ill temper, which, of themselves, any serious injury inflicted upon another man's were quite sufficient to raise a cloud of perplexity hopes or happiness, or upon his own. But what was over any law process, and to obscure it for any his real situation? He was a married man, married understanding. The commissioner grew warmer to the woman of his choice within a very few years: and warmer; and, at length, he had the presump- he was also a father, having one most promising tion to say "Sir, you are a disgrace to your son, somewhere about three years old. His young profession." When such sugar-plums, as Captain wife and his son composed his family; and both M'Turk the peacemaker observes, were flying be- were dependent, in the most absolute sense, for all tween them, there could be no room for further they possessed or they expected-for all they had parley. That same night the commissioner was or ever could have-upon his own exertions. waited on by a friend of the barrister's, who cleared Abandoned by him, losing him, they forfeited, in up his own misconceptions to the disconcerted one hour, every chance of comfort, respectability, judge; placed him, even to his own judgment, or security from scorn and humiliation. thoroughly in the wrong; and then most courteous- mother, a woman of strong understanding and ly troubled him for a reference to some gentleman, most excellent judgment-good and upright herself who would arrange the terms of a meeting for the-liable, therefore, to no habit of suspicion, and next day. The commissioner was too just and constitutionally cheerful, went to bed with her grave a man to be satisfied with himself, on a young son, thinking no evil. Midnight came, one, cool review of his own conduct. Here was a quar-two o'clock; mother and child had long been rel ripened into a mortal feud, likely enough to ter- asleep; nor did either of them dream of that danger minate in wounds, or, possibly, in death to one of the which even now was yawning under their feet. parties, which, on his side, carried with it no palli- The barrister had spent the hours from ten to two ations from any provocation received, or from in drawing up his will, and in writing such letters wrong and insult, in any form, sustained: these, as might have the best chance, in case of fatal in an aggravated shape, could be pleaded by my issue to himself, for obtaining some aid to the defriend, but with no opening for retaliatory pleas solate condition of those two beings whom he would on the part of the magistrate. That name, again, leave behind, unprotected and without provision. of magistrate, increased his offence and pointed its Oftentimes he stole into the bedroom, and gazed moral: he, a conservator of the laws-he, a dis- with anguish upon the innocent objects of his love; penser of equity, sitting even at the very moment and, as his conscience now told him, of his bitterest on the judgment seat-he to have commenced a perfidy. "Will you then leave us? Are you brawl, nay to have fastened a quarrel upon a man really going to betray us? Will you deliberately even then of some consideration and of high pro- consign us to life-long poverty, and scorn, and mise; a quarrel which finally tended to this result grief?" These affecting apostrophes he seemed, in -shoot or be shot. That commissioner's situation the silence of the night, to hear almost with bodily and state of mind, for the succeeding night, were Silent reproaches seemed written upon their certainly not enviable: like Southey's erring sleeping features; and once, when his wife suddenly ears. The |